The Kansas City Chiefs are already calling around ahead of the 2023 NFL draft to attempt to find a way to move up in the first round according to a new report.
Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer broke down team-by-team needs and pick predictions with sourced information in his recent edition of the MMQB. He said that the Chiefs are, “one of the few teams that has already made calls about moving up.” He added that the teams that Kansas City has spoken to feel they’re trying to find a “discounted way” to get up the board. What that exactly means remains to be seen. Perhaps they’re gauging interest in adding a player to a trade package? Maybe they’re simply looking for a bargain and a team who might take less in trade than expected.
He mentioned two particular targets in a trade-up. One of those is Boston College WR Zay Flowers and the other is Alabama RB Jahmyr Gibbs. The information on Flowers seems to lean heavily on his recent throwing session with Mahomes. The information on Gibbs sounds more like it’s speculation on his fit coming from sources outside the team’s building.
“I wouldn’t want to be in the AFC West,” an NFC exec told Breer. “if Gibbs winds up in Kansas City.”
It shouldn’t come as a massive surprise that K.C. has already begun doing their homework on making a trade-up in the first round of the 2023 NFL draft. Chiefs GM Brett Veach explained that all possibilities are on the table during his pre-draft media availability. He also gave a very descript play-by-play of when and how they go about laying the groundwork for a first-round trade.
Here’s Veach on that:
“Yeah, typically what we do is – like for example, this year we’re at (pick) 31 – we’ll find a range of where we think we’d be comfortable moving up. We’ll kind of highlight a few guys that we think if they fall to a certain point that they’d be worth it. And then we’ll figure out – last year, take for example, we moved from, I think it was, (pick) 30 to (picks) 21 or 22, I don’t know if it was a three and five (that) we gave up. So I think we started looking at those values. The charts are never completely accurate because some teams may be willing to take a little bit less, so I think what we do is, we’ll probably give or take one or two on each side. We’ll get to a range, so call it (pick) three or 20. And then from maybe teams (with picks) 18 to 30, we’ll just call and say – prior to the Draft – ‘What would you be thinking on Draft day if you were not comfortable?’ – I shouldn’t say ‘not comfortable’ but – ‘What would you be thinking on Draft day if you wanted to move out of that pick?’ We like to have those conversations ahead of time so that teams aren’t on the clock and then they’re trying to tell you want they want. And then you’re trying to say, ‘Well you’re using the Cowboy board. We’re using the Cardinals board. And you’re using the Detroit board.’ So like these teams all have different boards. And so we reach out and, like I said, we’ll touch base with the first 10 teams, 12 teams in front of us. Our guys will call their guys. We’ll have communication on who’s using what board and so that when we get to that pick we already had discussions with teams 18, 19, and 20 that if we get there, they’re using this board and this is what they would want and this is what we can expect if we wanted that so it’s not like trying to figure out, again, what board and exactly the numerical count they’re using because then – things happen quickly here so you have to be prepared so we do a lot of this on the backend. And usually that’s most of the time we spend Monday’s, Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s before the Draft just making sure that teams know that we’re interested in either trading up or trading back. And we know the teams that are interested in trading down and we know exactly what they want and what board they’re using.”
